ASIA WEEK For a magazine to be fully part of a readers everyday life, a market penetration is integral.

One has to create a marketing mix that shall cater to its audience. This was Asiaweeks dilemma. As the journal reading by Probert and Schutte suggested that there is an uncertain Market Positioning and lack of brand equity in the magazine in the early 1990s. As the years progress it has gone to the direction of the Time and Newsweek, playing the role of a General Consumers Magazine, by which defined by M. P. Davis as One that appeals to a broad mass segmented by lifestyle, usually a finer degree of audience selection( Davis, 1981) the audience they seemingly cater are very definite with subscription surveys showing the upper class elite. But despite acquiring its perspective audience Asiaweek failed to establish itself as a brand, with an initial development strategy to be the Asian Authority. This could be due to the following reasons: Asia is a western concept; there is no institution by which it stand, so it was mostly devoted to business and topics on money. Probable Solution: Segment the Market into halves of the MalayIndones, Chinese Speaking, North Asia, India etc. it will be an effective way of penetrating into your market. One cannot assume that what works for one may work for all, culture is a very big opponent. The hot news of this country may not sell as much as it would do to other countries. Split covers, side stories on covers should have long been experimented on. The Magazine failed in brand positioning Probable Solution: This should have long been resolved for the Magazine to be successful as its competitors Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek. In the early 1980s Asiaweeks approach to its readers was fresh and fearless, targeting Social and Political Issues of its day. Its pool of advertisers mostly came from European Companies. But as censorship and gazetting by some countries were a result of this strong-willed journalism on its idea of being an Asian Authority its finger on the Social pulse of Asia. Advertisers who see their brand in the pages of a magazine being burned in Nepal (Lama Wars February 21, 2001) or being banned in China is something they wouldnt like. That is the hard truth of publishing. If you greatly depend on advertisers for the circulation of your series, learn to please them. People advertising in Asiaweek are almost the same big companies who are into Time and Newsweek (Rolex, BMW, Cathay Air etc.) though advertising

revenues werent as good. According to Time the reason for closure of Asiaweek an ongoing slump in advertising sales.(source: CNN Articles). To the advertisers, it wasnt only the value of an outspoken issue but the total readership.

Probert and Schuttes take on Asiaweek having a Chinese-language publication Yazhou Zhoukan a major financial problem was that again a pan-Asian Chinese audience did not exist and that was it was impossible to write articles that sounded natural to all Chinese. Therefore it was sold to Ming Pao, a hongkong based newspaper group. If you solely judge on the article you would probably think that it is a futile idea to venture into creating a Magazine covering Asian events written in Chinese Language but if we are talking about facts in the year 2012. Asiaweek has long been gone in 2001, Time closed Asiaweek due to advertising slump. More than that it could not compete with the growing number of global and local media expanding into regional editions. While its Chinese counterpart Yazhou Zhoukan is still in circulation up to this date. How? Yazhou Zhoukan has a definite Market Position being the first Chinese title publishing international issues. Yazhou Zhoukan aims to provide the latest news about the global affairs to Chinese society, leaders and elites internationally. In its role as a Chinese language platform it reports news, current affairs, analysis and opinion. The Chinese language is being spoken by 1.051 billion ( 2004-2012 VISTAWIDE.COM) people in the world. Despite English being the Lingua franca of the business World, Chinese Mandarin is also considered in many businesses today. The language alone is not an issue anymore. It is the Chinese Asiaweek Yazhou Zhoukan answer to Asiaweek dilemma of its uncertain Market Position.

Asiaweek is a Regional Magazine with a Global Vision. The Global society today, is the audience Asiaweek had been looking for. People have easily access to the internet that it has become a commodity. It is cheap and in some countries, free. It gives a broader perspective of the world. Asiaweek could have play an integral part to inhabitants of Asia today, for unlike its competitors Time and Newsweek the more regionalized news it offers are what majority of viewers are looking. Mainstream news is just too mainstream, and people are looking for news that is radical and straightforward, the editorial quality Asiaweek had. It could have been the

balancing act between popular news and news that REALLY matter. Asiaweek could easily have found its place in todays society as the Magazine that offers News without fear of censorship and gazetting. Advertising wouldnt be a problem anymore for the mood is already set or the readers state of mind when the advertising message is being delivered, offering a finer degree of audience selection will offer considerable advertising advantages, since you can reach a clearly defined group of prospect when they are likely to be receptive to your message (Davis, 1981).

Positioning is all about affecting the way consumer sees the brand in the mind (Gatchalian as quoted by Ong in 2000). A product is whats made in the factory. A product exists in the mind. The purpose of Positioning is to acquire the largest number of consumers who prefer your brand over other brands. There are 3 Elements of Positioning as follows: Target Market: the set of people you want to sell your brand to The Competitive Frame: the set of other brands that targets can conceivably choose, hence, they are the brands or products you must beat in the minds of your target The Point of difference: Benefits that make your brand more desirable than other brands. These elements are interrelated. Positioning is the process of selecting the best combination of target Market, competitive frame, and point of difference that will enable you to sell more.(Gatchalian 2000) Positioning as to Market positioning of a Brand may pertain to how a certain audience perceives a brand. Todays society of is a society of keyplayer products, from the moment we wake up, from Kellogs to your favourite Newspaper to the moment you go to sleep, to Mandaue foam or the milk you drink before you sleep. For a product to sustain its market audience it must penetrate through it and play an integral part in their life. Once positioning has been done, brand loyalty is gained in our Asiaweeks case a continuous renewal of subscriptions. Advertising is all about the brand of product or the brand of service. At the core of any advertising is the brand. Brand equity is vital and one way to build brand Equity is consistency in product quality. For a brand to remain as first choice in the minds of its loyal users it is integral to know the consumer (Ong, 2000). RESOURCES:

Davis, M. (1981). The Effective Use of Advertising in Media3rd Edition . Chandos Place, London: Century Hutchinson Ltd. Brookmount House. Ong, Y. (2000). The Science of Advertising. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc. Wright, J.S. (1962). Advertising. USA: Mcgraw-Hill Probert, J., Schutte, H. (1999). Asiaweek: Positioning a Regional Magazine. France: INSEAD-EAC ONLINE RESOURCES: Wikipedia.org: Asiaweek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiaweek ( 1 April 2012 at 04:24.) Yazhou Zhoukan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazhou_Zhoukan (3 April 2012 at 20:04)

CNN Articles: Asiaweek Shuts Shop: http://articles.cnn.com/keyword/asiaweek (November 29, 2001)

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